About Whitewashed Jacarandas

Hope Looms in a Vast Land Wide Open with Possibilities…

Jobs are scarce after WWII but Doctor Sunny Rubenstein lands an appointment in Southern Africa at a gold mine. Attached to it is the smallest municipality in the world, Umzimtuti. Surgically competent and self sufficient, Sunny anticipates a free rein in this backwater where dread disease is still commonplace. He needs to save his marriage to Mavourneen and overcome the mine management, the hospital matron and the entrenched mayor to bring Umzimtuti into the 20th century.

He decides to stand for council but Mavourneen and the small Jewish community worry that rising hostilities in Palestine against British occupation threaten his chances. Furthermore, King George VI and the Royal Family are due to stop off for afternoon tea at the Railway Park on their Victory Tour. Though Empire is on the wane, fervor for King and Empire have never been higher in Umzimtuti.

Based on real events, this is the story of conflicting values, small minds and big ideals of a Colonial era that is seldom portrayed.

Diana Polisensky is a recluse living in a tree house on the edge of the Pacific. When colonialism was still respectable she was born into a medical family and grew up in a swimming pool in Africa. She crossed the Atlantic as a young woman and experienced life on all three American coasts, ending her career in genetic engineering behind the hedges at Rice University in the Lone Star State. Whitewashed Jacarandas marks the first installment in an epic saga chronicling the end of the colonial experience in Southern Rhodesia.

Upcoming Events!

Diana's a highly sought after speaker on anything from runaway railway trains to entertaining Royalty. Diana's 2016 calendar is filling up fast. To discuss a topic that would entertain your audience email Diana.

Join CHG for apple cider and Matron Griffin's to-die-for shortbread and other cookies before Diana chats about the evolution of the book, and publication process, answers your questions and signs your books. (PS It's rumored she might have copies of the celebrated shortbread recipe to hand out!)

Diana will be guest speaker Reading Between the Lines of Whitewashed Jacarandas at OCLI. Please join her as her guest at this 85 member Institute for the morning. Lunch with her afterwards at Salishan's celebrated Sun Room where she will continue the discussion informally.

I'll share insights into my book writing process and publication while we munch on our sandwiches before hostess Becky Yasenchak, author of the cookbook "Beyond the City Limits", brings out the dessert and coffee.

Yeehaw!!! I’m headed back to 10 Gallon Country. I’ll grab myself a new Rustler Stetson and cowboy boots on 6th Street in Austin before I visit the LBJ Presidential Library and head to the Cordillera Ranch Book Club in the very heart of the Hill Country for an afternoon of book talk over tea and cakes. I’m hoping Lady Bird Johnson’s wild flowers will be at their peak all over the place. Afterwards I’ll tour the LBJ Ranch with old friends before I blog back to y’all.

Mix and muse before a sit down dinner, then we tuck into dessert, coffee and liqueurs and by that time a no-sweat discussion on Whitewashed Jacarandas. Really looking forward to joining this wonderful group of women.

Vanessa Shapiro will host a celebration of Diana's oncecalledhome short stories and the South African launch of her historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas. Join the crowd for tea, talk and fellowship.
RSVPhttp://www.oncecalledhome.com/2016/07/going-home-come-for-tea/
Directions will follow closer to the time.